Someday
by She's a Star
Summary: Tired of restless nights and grief-ridden thoughts, Harry gives up on the idea of sleep and in turn discovers that he is not quite as alone as he thought. HP/GW, takes place the summer after OotP. Spoilers.


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Someday

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by She's a Star

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Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling happens to own Harry Potter. Surprising, I know.

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Author's Note: I've been wanting to write a G/H for awhile, and so this came into existence - I think it's a bit OOC for Harry, but I couldn't help it. So let's just call this a piece of brainless fluff, shall we?

Also, I was far too lazy to proofread - I tried, but got bored after the first page, so please forgive me for any errors you may come across. :-)

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Moonlight seeped through the window, and Harry found himself hating it. Why did everyone seem to like it so much, anyway? There was absolutely nothing romantic about moonlight. It was annoying and inconvenient and it was the reason that he couldn't fall asleep. If it weren't for the moonlight, maybe he'd finally be able to get some rest, and then maybe he'd be able to stop thinking . . . thinking, and remembering, and missing . . . 

He tried to distract himself, but there was nothing else in his mind. Little things - small, stupid, trivial things had disappeared along with Sirius. What did Quidditch, or Cho, or any of that matter, anyway? His godfather was dead and he would never see him again. Just like his parents.

Only it was worse, really. Worse than his parents. He had known Sirius. 

All he had of his parents were wispy grey echoes, reflections in enchanted mirrors, and other peoples' memories.

Sirius had been different.

"No," he muttered angrily, and sat up abruptly in bed. 

He wasn't going to think about that again. What was the point, really? Thinking wouldn't bring him back.

The moonlight continued to shine adamantly, sneaking through Ron's abysmal orange curtains. Harry found himself hating the curtains too - lousy curtains, really. They couldn't even keep the moonlight out.

This was the first time he hadn't enjoyed himself at The Burrow, and it was unnerving. Never before had his misery continued to haunt him instead of being left behind at Privet Drive. 

And the odd thing was, nothing made him feel better. Not Mrs. Weasley's failed, albeit affectionate, attempts to smooth his hair or special care when it came to his socks; not the twins' endless joking; not Mr. Weasley's fascination with record players; not Ron's horror when Ginny managed to beat him at chess.

Before, all of this would have made him at least feel a bit light-hearted in spite of himself. 

Now, he just felt empty.

Earlier that day, he'd accompanied Ginny and Ron on a walk around Ottery St. Catchpole, and along the way they'd met a stray black dog who took to following them around. Harry had found himself remembering Padfoot, and soundlessly made his way back to The Burrow alone.

For the rest of the day, Ron and Ginny shot him frequent looks of concern, but remained silent. This was to be expected of Ron, but Harry hadn't expected it from Ginny - she had a habit of bringing things up that he would have rather kept quiet.

He didn't know what to think of her, but welcomed doing it regardless because it was nice to have something to distract him. He felt - guilty, almost, when he was around her, because he'd known her for four years without really bothering to actually _know_ her. Maybe if he had paid more attention to her, he would have gotten to know her sooner.

Or maybe, he reflected with a wry sort of smile, She'd been too busy sticking her elbows in butterdishes and making him singing get-well cards to get to know him properly.

Well, one thing was for sure: he couldn't see traces of that Ginny in this one. She seemed so . . . _confident_. Though, of course, other adjectives came to mind, words that he usually didn't find himself using: vivacious, vibrant, audacious . . . 

He felt stupid even thinking them, and decided to put Ginny out of his mind. 

With a grave sigh, he rose from the makeshift bed he'd spent the last four sleepless nights in and made his way out into the hall, careful to step lightly so the floorboards wouldn't creak. The sound of soft, even breathing filled the otherwise-silent house.

What he needed was Butterbeer. Yes, he doubted he'd be able to drown his sorrows completely in it, a la Winky, but at the moment he felt that nothing else could make him feel even slightly at peace.

He entered the Weasley kitchen with a relentless craving for the drink, only to find that he wasn't the only one thinking along those lines. Standing in a corner was a small figure with vivid red hair who was currently twisting open what Harry knew to be the last bottle of butterbeer.

"Hey," he said, more sharply than he'd intended.

Ginny looked up at once, uttering a small gasp of surprise. The bottle of butterbeer slipped from her hands and broke, with a sickening crash, on the floor.

"_Dammit_!" she muttered angrily, immediately sinking down onto her knees in front of the mess and muttering '_Reparo_'. The broken bits of glass instantly squeezed together like jagged puzzle pieces to form a bottle again, but the floor was still covered in amber butterbeer.

"What's going on down there?" came Mr. Weasley's panicked voice; Harry could hear hurried footsteps approaching.

"Nothing, Dad!" Ginny called back, wincing. "It's only me. I dropped something."

Harry heard Mr. Weasley sigh in relief. "All right. Go to bed soon, Gin. You need your rest."

"All right," Ginny agreed.

"Goodnight, sweetheart."

"Goodnight, Dad." 

Harry watched her as she retrieved a sponge from the sink and sunk down onto the floor again, scrubbing irritably at it. One of the straps of her nightdress, which was ivory and made of rather light material - he assumed this was probably due to the uncomfortably humid weather lately - slid off of her shoulder as she wiped up the mess. He realized with a start that he was staring, and as he looked away he felt his cheeks flush.

"I'm sorry about that," he informed one of the cabinets as he looked rather determinedly at it. "I didn't mean to surprise you--"

"S'okay," she replied, standing up and tossing the sponge into the sink. "I've been having too many sweets lately, anyway. I think I'm getting addicted to that stuff."

"Yeah, that's always a problem," Harry said, grinning a little. "I know a house-elf who's badly in need of Butterbeeraholics Anonymous."

Ginny laughed and placed the newly-mended bottle onto the counter. Something occurred to him.

"Aren't you going to get a notice from the Ministry?" Harry asked. "For using magic during the holidays?"

"Nah," Ginny said offhandedly, shrugging. She had yet to slide the nightgown strap back onto her shoulder. "They don't monitor them so closely with magical households. It's mainly just around Muggles. We've got so much magic going on around here what with Mum and Dad and Bill and the twins that they won't pay any attention to a little repairing charm."

"You're so lucky," Harry said glumly. "Doing magic over the summer holidays has gotten me into more trouble than it's worth."

"Yes, well," said Ginny, and there was something that he couldn't quite read in her bright brown eyes, "I don't think they quite get what it's like, being Harry Potter."

Harry let out a hollow laugh. "Does anyone?"

Ginny shrugged again. "I think I've got a faint idea myself."

Harry's first impulse was to laugh disbelievingly, but he quickly stifled the urge. Still, it seemed so bizarre, that a pretty young girl standing in his best friend's kitchen and wearing a cute little nightdress could have any idea what he'd experienced. She didn't understand . . . she couldn't _possibly_ understand . . .

"You just want to be normal," she said softly. "You just want to worry about homework and Quidditch matches and who fancies who, but at the same time, you _hate_ the people whose lives revolve around that stuff, because they just don't _get it_. They have no idea what it's like to be you. And you feel constantly endangered by _him_, and you know somehow that you can't escape, and you're afraid, so constantly afraid that he's going to ruin the people you love. You find yourself getting quieter, and not talking much anymore, and secretly devising ways to turn your friends against you just so you won't have to see them get hurt because of you. And you _hate_ him, and you find yourself praying for miracles because there's no way in hell you can get out of this on your own. And then you _do _get your miracle, and you're so happy, and you tell yourself that you're finally free of him . . . but he's still there, in the back of your mind, lingering somewhere, and you can _feel_ him there, but then you feel like an idiot for even thinking it because you're just paranoid - he's turned you into a paranoid wreck. And yet you can't be logical, and you can't quite ever feel _free_, because he's inside you somehow, inside your brain, inside your soul, and you just can't get rid of him, but there's no way you can bear living with him, and you know sooner or later he's just going to drive you completely mad."

An eerie silence fell over them, and she shivered involuntarily. Harry was suddenly struck by how very small she looked, like a helpless little girl, and he wondered vaguely how he had ever thought Ginny had changed so completely.

He remembered, with startling clarity, the sound of his own footsteps pounding in his ears as he ran desperately toward the tiny, redheaded figure unconscious at the opposite end of the Chamber, and never feeling this kind of terror before in his life . . .

"How's that?" she asked with a twisted sort of smile. "Am I close?"

Relief swept over him as he stared at her, and he felt strangely elated as realization struck: Ginny knew, Ginny understood; everyone else had no idea what he was going through, but he wasn't alone. Ginny had been through the very same thing . . .

"Yeah," he said, and nervously ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, I think you explained it pretty perfectly."

"Well, I'm glad," she said, and smiled at him again, but this time with her usual radiance. "Harry, you can always talk to me."

"Okay," he said faintly; his eyes had drifted back to her shoulder, and before he could realize properly what he was doing, he was brushing the strap of her nightdress back onto her shoulder.

Her skin was oddly soft - he couldn't recall ever touching anything exactly similar. Every trace of logical thought seemed to have left his mind, and all that remained were hazy inarticulate musings over why he had never realized before how beautiful she was.

He knew that he should have moved away by now, but his brain didn't seem willing to send that particular message to his hand. This entire situation was so hopelessly strange; he didn't feel that familiar surge of panic that had always overtaken him when he'd been close to Cho - instead, he felt rather certain that he would like very much to kiss Ginny, and no uncomfortable stomach lurching followed this idea.

"Ginny," he said softly, "Could I kiss you?"

There was a pause.

"I don't think so," she finally replied, in a very matter-of-fact sort of way.

The strange haziness seemed to disappear at once, replaced by a painful sort of acuteness around him. Feeling very stupid, Harry removed his hand from her shoulder and took a few steps back, just for good measure.

"Oh," he said, and felt his cheeks flaming. As a matter of fact, he wouldn't have been surprised if his entire head had gone scarlet. "Oh, right. Er . . . sorry, I forgot . . . Dean . . . I'm really, really sorry--"

"It's not Dean," Ginny cut in.

"Huh?" Harry asked, very intelligently. "But I thought . . ."

"No, I just said that to bug Ron," said Ginny. "He _did_ ask me out, but I said no."

"Oh," said Harry awkwardly. "Well . . . er . . ."

He wanted very much to ask why, if she wasn't going out with Dean, he couldn't kiss her, but felt it wasn't exactly an appropriate question. Quite frankly, he didn't understand it - if she had liked him for years, then surely she wouldn't object to kissing him? Though, of course, she didn't seem to fancy him at all anymore. And maybe Hermione had told her about Cho crying when she'd kissed him. Maybe the two of them had laughed themselves stupid over how Ginny had used to like Harry Potter, and how she was just lucky to have stopped before she'd kissed him--

"It's nothing personal, of course," Ginny said quickly, eyeing him in concern. "I just . . . I don't . . . Harry, I liked you for a really long time."

"Yeah, I know," he said automatically, then cringed inwardly once he saw her expression. "Um, I mean--"

"Don't bother," she said, and laughed a little. "I know it was obvious. Maybe the Valentine was a bit over the top."

"Just a little," Harry agreed.

"Well, the thing is," Ginny said, and bit her lip nervously. Harry was somewhat comforted by the knowledge that she felt just as uncomfortable as he did. "If . . . if I let you kiss me, I'd probably go back to fancying you for years and years again, and I really doubt you want that."

"Actually, I really wouldn't mind," he replied earnestly.

She giggled.

"You want to kiss me," Ginny said, a bit bitterly, "Because I understand you. And right now, you want that more than anything. It's not me; you just want to embrace the fact that I've been through what you have."

Harry wasn't quite sure that this was true, but he nodded weakly. "I . . . I guess so."

Ginny stared at him for a moment, and for a second he thought he saw a sliver of the adoration that had always shone in her eyes back when she'd fancied him and he hadn't quite cared. But it disappeared almost instantly, and he was left suddenly feeling very foolish, as though he hadn't realized something important until it was too late to do anything about it.

"I think I'm going to go to bed," Ginny announced, and tucked her hair neatly behind her ears before proceeding to exit the kitchen. She stopped at the door-frame for a moment and turned to stare at him; he gave her a lame smile. 

After a moment of what seemed to be silent deliberation, she made her way swiftly over to him and pecked him on the cheek.

"Hey, Harry," she said quietly, and she was still so close that he could smell her flowery shampoo and a hint of something like peppermint. 

"Yeah?" he asked weakly, and very much wanted to kiss her again.

"Someday, all right?" she said, and smiled at him one last time before turning and leaving the kitchen. He listened to her soft footsteps fade slowly as she made her way up the stairs.

He had raised his hand to his cheek, touching where Ginny had kissed him, before realizing quite what he was doing. Feeling unnervingly like Ron before the previous year's first Quidditch match, he removed his hand at once and cast one last glance at the empty butterbeer bottle before making his way back upstairs. He paused briefly in front of Ginny's door and listened - he could hear her humming absently to herself.

Smiling a little, he climbed the remaining stairs to Ron's room and sank back down onto the cot. 

The moonlight continued to spill through the window as Harry fell asleep, and dreamed not of falling and loss but, instead, of someday.


End file.
